Ford's F-150, America's perennial best-selling vehicle and part of a truck line that has claimed sales leadership for 31 years, may well keep that distinction, thanks to an extensive redesign for the 2009 model year.

There's a funny story about the Sterling 360's name. In a short bull session following a press conference last year, a couple of Sterling executives related that they considered calling the truck "AC 360," as in a circular 360 degrees, because the truck is "better all around," which became its marketing slogan.

The test truck was the International TranStar in the new nomenclature - 8600 in the past. But the other new badges, high on the side of the hood, told the story: MaxxForce. This tractor was one of the International validation units for the new big-bore engines, destined for a high-mileage fleet to get fast results before the engine becomes commercially available around mid-year.

We're witnessing a huge change in the way trucks and engines come together. We saw it first with Volvo's D-platform engines (shared with Mack and Renault). We'll soon see International take a similar approach, sharing an engine platform between International trucks in North America and MAN chassis in Europe.

The point of Volvo Trucks' latest model, the VHD 430, is its sleeper compartment. While previous VHDs have daycabs and work as dumpers, concrete mixer chassis and equipment haulers, the 42-inch-cab addition, with its 36-inch-wide by 79-inch-long bunk, provides a comfortable place for a driver to rest and to legally overnight no matter where he and his rig are.

The C15 was very responsive, showed great throttle modulation and made gearshifting a joy. And at the event, the 387 it powered also gave pause. I hadn't driven one in several years and the new dash appealed enormously.